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Volume   3 


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v.  3 


Federal  council  of  the  churches  of  Christ  in 
America.  What  every  church  should  know  about 
its  community. 

General  Association  of  Congregational  Churches 
of  Massachusetts •  Advance  reports  of  various 
committees,  1908  and  1909 

McElfresh,  F»  The  country  Sunday  school 

McTTutt,  I,  B«  Modern  methods  in  the  country  church 

MclTutt ,  M*  B.  A  post-graduate  school  with  a  purpose 

Massachusetts  Federation  of  Churches,  Quarterly 
"bulletin.  Facts  and  factors.  October  1910 
nThe   part  of  the  church  in  rural  progress  as 
discussed  at  the  Amherst  Conference." 

Root,  E.  T.  State  federations 

Taft,  A.  B.  The  mistress  of  the  rural  manse 

Taf  t ,  A.  B.  The  tent  mission 

Taylor,  G.  Basis  for  social  evangelism  with  rural 
applications 

Wells,  G.  F.  An  ansv/er  to  the  New  England  country 
church  question. 

Wells,  G.  F.  What  our  country  churches  need 

Wilson,  W.  H.  The  church  and  the  transient 

Wilson,  W.  H.  Conservation  of  boys 

Wilson,  W.  H.  The  country  church 

Wilson,  W.  H.  The  country  church  program 

Wilson,  W.  H.  Don't  breathe  on  the  thermometer 

Wilson,  W.  H.  The  farmers'  church  and  the  farmers' 
S  college 

CO 

co    Wilson,  W,  IT.  Getting  the  worker  to  church 

Q_ 
UJ 
CO 


Wilson,  W.  H»  The  girl  on  the  farm 

Wilson,  W.  II •  How  to  manage  a  country  life 
institute 

Wilson,  W.  H.  "Marrying  the  land." 

Wilson,  W.  H.  lTo  need  to  "be  poor  in  the  country 

Wilson,  W»  H.  Synod's  opportunity 

Wilson,  W.  H.  What  limits  the  rural  Evangel 


•  «»3  9?»« 


The  church,  and  country  life.   Pamphlet  issued 
by  the  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the  Preshy> 
terian  Church. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2011  with  funding  from 

Boston  Library  Consortium  Member  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/girlonfarm03wils 


Department  of  Church  and  Labor,  the  Board  of  Home  Missions 
of  the  .Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.S.A.,156  Fifth  Ave.,KewYork 

Clje&trlontljejFarm 


By  WARREN  H.  WILSON,  Ph.D. 

THE  modern  woman  is  waking  up  to 
ask  the  world,  "What  about  me?" 
American  and  European  history- 
has  done  much  in  a  century  for  the 
man.  But  just  before  he  has  got  himself  set- 
tled and  prospered  his  sister  becomes  restless. 
We  have  heard  about  the  boy  on  the  farm. 
What  about  the  girl? 

The  boy's  problem  is  one  of  money-making. 
Agricultural  colleges  and  experiment  stations 
exist  for  him,  but  who  will  look  after  his  sis- 
ter? Her  place  shall  be  determined  by  mar- 
riage, of  course.  In  the  country  there  are  not 
so  many  fields  of  respectable  independent  em- 
ployment of  woman  as  in  the  city.  Woman's 
life  is  always  social.  Unless  a  deliberate  ef- 
fort is  undertaken  in  this  prosperous  genera- 
tion to  make  country  life  acceptable  to  woman 
we  shall  hear  not  only  of  the  boys  continuing 
to  leave  the  farm,  but  of  the  removal  of  the 
home  life  from  the  country,  due  to  the  de- 
parture of  the  daughters  of  the  farm. 

After  a  night  at  a  farmhouse  I  was  driven 
eight  miles  to  the  station  by  the  farmer's 
daughter.  She  was  going  to  her  music  teacher 
for  a  lesson  on  the  guitar,  and  I  was  going  to 
the  railway  station.  She  was  as  charming  and 
cultivated  as  any  town  girl.  Her  father's  pros- 
perity was  evident  in  her  manners,  her  dress 
and  her  self-possession;  but  I  could  not  learn 
that  in  the  country-side  she  had  any  compan- 
ions or  any  social  life,  though  her  father  was 
buying  his  second  automobile  within  two 
years.  The  telephone,  the  daily  paper  and  the 
progressive  weekly  magazine  were  in  evidence 


in  the  farmhouse  sitting-room.  But  the  com- 
fortable sleigh  in  which  we  rode  had  evidently 
no  social  value.  The  old  merry  days  in  the 
country  had  departed,  and  the  new  prosperity 
had  brought  nothing  with  it  but  work.  We 
left  her  brother  in  the  great  barn  beginning 
his  all-day-long  chores. 

I  recently  visited  a  New  England  country- 
side in  October.  We  went  by  invitation  to  a 
husking-bee,  and  great  numbers  of  young  peo- 
ple were  present.  But  the  old  merry  customs, 
though  known  to  all,  were  out  of  practice.  The 
young  people  seemed  to  be  unacquainted.  Hard 
labor  and  the  distractions  of  the  town  had 
taken  the  warmth  out  of  country  life.  There 
were  no  free  manners,  there  was  no  intimate 
acquaintance,  and  there  was  no  charm  of  so- 
cial unity  among  them. 

Another  community  with  which  I  have  in- 
timate acquaintance  exhibits  dire  problems  of 
a  moral  sort.  The  lands  of  the  town  are 
owned  by  two  classes  of  residents — the  old 
and  degenerate,  who  are  clinging  to  the  land 
in  pitiful  obedience  to  ancient  ideals  of  life, 
and  the  new,  prosperous  farmers,  who  have 
discovered  where  to  make  farming  profitable 
in  serving  the  new  markets.  Neither  of  these 
classes  is  any  help  to  the  growing  younger 
generation.  The  old  are  too  dull  and  dead, 
and  the  young  are  too  industrious  and  thrifty. 
The  social  life  which  once  blessed  the  coun- 
try-side, which  the  elders  remember,  has 
passed  away  forever.  Nothing  has  taken  its 
place. 

Upon  the  life  of  growing  girls  these  con- 
ditions of  social  coldness  and  degeneracy  and 
disorder  have  a  starving  or  a  dissipating  ef- 
fect. For  them  there  is  little  opportunity  in 
scientific  agriculture.  The  industries  of  the 
farmhouse  have  been  in  a  lesser  degree  reor- 
ganized for  them  than  have  the  industries  in 
which  their  brothers  must  work.  The  farm- 
house is  more  conservative  to  change  than  the 
barn.  The  drudgery  of  the  kitchen  is  more 
like  the  drudgery  of  the  kitchen  in  old  times. 


The  country  school,  in  which  the  farmer's 
daughter  remains  longer  than  his  son,  has  less 
to  offer  her  proportionately  than  in  the  old 
days. 

The  cultivation  of  social  life  in  the  country 
must  begin  and  must  end  with  the  cultivation 
of  the  group  life  of  the  women.  Women  are 
the  organizers  of  social  life  in  all  communi- 
ties. They  are  more  intensely  loyal  and  more 
conservative,  and  the  moral  life  of  a  people 
which  is  the  product  of  group  organization  is 
of  greater  conscious  importance  to  a  woman 
than  to  a  man.  The  country  church  has  a 
great  duty  in  the  organization  of  the  life  of 
country  women.  Societies  with  a  biblical  or 
religious  purpose  can  be  more  easily  organ- 
ized among  women  than  among  men.  The 
philanthropic  problems  of  the  country  can  be 
committed  to  the  women  of  the  parish  and  will 
be  wisely  managed  by  them.  The  first  prob- 
lem is  that  of  leadership,  and  the  woman  of 
social  standing  will  find  in  this  field  her  great- 
est opportunity.  After  the  problem  of  leader- 
ship comes  the  problem  of  purpose,  and  mis- 
sionary, philanthropic,  literary  and  ethical  pur- 
pose may  be  serviceable  in  particular  commu- 
nities. 

The  greatest  essential  is  not  the  professed 
purpose  of  a  society,  but  the  greatest  essential 
is  the  association  itself.  That  woman  will  be 
the  best  leader  who  can  consolidate  and  can 
assemble  the  women,  because  social  life  itself 
is  the  necessary  thing.  The  woman's  society 
may  not  raise  much  money  for  missions  nor 
give  much  to  the  poor,  though  in  these  fields 
its  efficiency  will  be  recorded.  The  actual  gain 
of  a  woman's  society  shall  be  in  the  fact  that 
through  a  course  of  years  it  has  given  normal 
social  training  to  the  younger  and  the  ruder 
members  of  the  community.  It  has  imposed  a 
standard  of  character  upon  growing  girls,  and 
it  has  imparted  to  women  whose  home^  life  is 
starved  and  whose  emotional  nature  is  in  dan- 
ger of  degradation,  a  high  enjoyment  of  bet- 
ter ideals  and  intimate  association  with  other 


women.  This  common  experience  is  itself  a 
moral  uplift.  The  very  providing  of  a  meeting 
place  and  accomplishing  a  warm  social  gather- 
ing is  in  itself  a  great  public  service.  This 
service  the  country  church  should  render  in 
every  community  for  all  the  young  people  of 
the  population,  but,  above  all,  for  the 
daughter  of  the  farmer  and  for  his  wife. 

In  eastern  New  York  is  a  community  to 
which  came  twenty  years  ago  a  city  woman  to 
reside.  Within  two  years  she  was  drawn  into 
the  life  of  the  place  through  an  organization 
of  young  women  of  which  she  became  the 
head.  It  was  religious  and  biblical  at  the  start, 
but  it  has  passed  through  every  phase  of  pos- 
sible human  interest  and  enjoyed  and  contin- 
ued them  all.  This  society  still  lives,  and 
although  several  women  have  been  presiding 
officers  it  has  the  same  leader.  It  has  influ- 
enced the  lives  of  its  members  in  every  way 
in  religious  and  moral  matters  and  in  the  most 
intimate  personal  affairs,  and  it  has  been  a 
centre  for  the  social  life  of  the  whole  com- 
munity. Women  whose  lives  possessed  little 
privilege  have  found  it  rich  in  social  advan- 
tage and  in  abundant  enjoyment.  The  society 
has  been  perfectly  democratic,  although  its 
members  reside  in  a  community  divided  by  all 
existing  social  lines  of  the  most  rigid  sort.  It 
has  done  much  to  make  life  happy  for  its 
members  and  to  make  the  community  attrac- 
tive to  them  wherever  they  may  afterwards 
have  lived.  For  such  a  society  a  rural  com- 
munity offers  the  greatest  advantage,  and  just 
such  a  society  is  needed  in  the  rural  commu- 
nity more  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 


THE  WILLKTT  PRESS,  N.  T. 


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